No sound? Glitches and noise? Audio coming out of the wrong speakers? Resolving your OS X audio problems can be a time consuming process. It could be a matter of changing a simple setting or it could end up consuming most of your afternoon.

Fortunately we’ve come up with a list of everything we can think of that you can do to resolve any sound problems your Mac may encounter. Let’s begin.

First: Volume & Headphones

Before you spend all day resolving a non-existent issue, check that you have one at all. Adjust your volume (make sure it’s not muted) and check your device’s audio out port doesn’t have any earphones or other external devices plugged in.

You can’t play music from your internal speakers while another output device is connected in this port.

Check Your Sound Settings

Head to System Preferences > Sound > Output (you can search for it using Spotlight too) and check your sound settings for discrepancies. If you’re using a laptop, you’ll probably want to choose “Internal Speakers” (or “Headphones” if you’re using them). You may also see “Digital Output” if you’re not on a laptop. Make sure the desired output is selected.

Note: You canalso quickly change audio input and output devices by holding the option key and clicking the speaker icon in the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Some users have reported their issues being resolved simply by switching from one output to another. You can also try plugging in headphones (or another 3.5mm jack) and pulling them out again.

Reset Core Audio & Restart

Core Audio is Apple’s low-level API for dealing with sound on the Mac. Sometimes things go wrong, and this results in no audio, and sometimes even distorted, tinny or noisy sound too. Before you restart your computer, try restarting the Core Audio process.

Before the grey screen appears, press the Command, Option, P, and R keys at the same time.

Hold the keys until your computer restarts and you hear the startup sound a second time.

Release the keys.

You may notice that your computer is a little slower to start up, and that certain settings have been reset (the time, volume, keyboard preferences and so on). You might also find that your sound issues have been resolved.

Problems with External Devices

Sometimes when you connect an external device (like an HDMI TV) the sound will continue to come out of your internal speakers. To resolve this, connect the device and head back to the System Preferences > Sound menu and make sure your HDMI (or other connected device) output is selected on the Output tab.

You can also choose to output AirPlay audio to nearby devices via this interface, which is particularly handy for sharing audio separately to video.

Third Party Software Problems

You may run into an issue where your sound works in all but one app, in which case you’ll probably have to define your desired output device in that app’s settings. This is most often an issue associated with audio and video editors, like Audacity and Adobe Audition.

Instructions for each app will differ, but you’ll want to ensure you choose the same output device that appears in your Mac’s System Preferences > Sound > Output option panel. Some software may require you to create an aggregate device, which allows you to use multiple audio interfaces at the same time.

Before you upgrade your OS make sure you’ve backed everything up, then head to the App Store and on the Updates tab you’ll see an option to upgrade to the latest version. The download may take some time, and once finished installation is straightforward.

Microphone and Input Devices

Just like output devices, input devices like audio interfaces and microphones can also be mis-configured. Head to the System Preferences > Sound > Output menu to define your output device. This particularly handy if you have connected a microphone and want to make sure you’re not using your computer’s internal one instead.

Can’t See “Internal Speakers” or Other Outputs?

This is a rare but fairly well-documented problem as asked on message boards and in blog comments with little in the way of a fix. It seems most common after performing an operating system upgrade, in particular the leap from 10.09 (Mavericks) to 10.10 (Yosemite).

I've started to experience sound problems using external speakers with my mac mini since updating to OSX Sierra.

Despite the mac still recognising the external speakers, no sound it audible.

I have used the "sudo killall coreaudiod" and it didnt work first time but when i tried it again it worked for some reason. However, a few days later the issue recurred. I turned my mac on and it wasnt playying any audio through the speakers.

This has happened to me a few times now and I'm looking for something a little more robust to stop the need to manually kill coreaudio & restart the mac whenever it messes up.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated, it's getting very frustrating now.

I've started to experience sound problems using external speakers with my mac mini since updating to OSX Sierra.

Ill turn my mac on and despite it still recognising the external speakers, no sound is audible.

I have used the "sudo killall coreaudiod" and it didn't work first time but when I tried it again it worked for some reason. However, a few days later the issue recurred - I turned my mac on and it wasn't playing any audio through the speakers.

This has happened to me a few times now and I'm looking for something a little more robust to stop the need to manually kill coreaudio & restart the mac whenever it messes up.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated, it's getting very frustrating now.

Have you checked that the external speakers are selected under System Preferences > Sound > Output? And that it isn't muted?

Test your speakers with other devices too. Try headphones with your Mac mini and see if you get the same problem. Maybe try searching for the problem in relation to your specific hardware?

A last ditch attempt to fix the issue would be to back up with Time Machine and reinstall macOS (you can hold down R during startup to launch Recovery Mode and then delete your partition using Disk Utility, and reinstall macOS from there).

Assuming you've tried all of the above I'm not really sure what else could help. Keep us posted!

First of I am using a Mac Pro (2013) with macOS Sierra 10.12.1 with a OWC Thunderbolt 2 (Dock). The Mac Pro have (2) 3.5mm audio plugs - left output - right input - I have the same audio connections on OWC's Dock. Problem is no matter what microphone I use, unable to get sound into Mac Pro through different mic's. I tried to install Soundflower v1.6.6b but 'The Installation failed'.
Now that Sierra has Siri I need to input sound. Is there an alternative to Soundflower. Or what do you suggest. No problem in copying/listening system sound to an application.
Also no success with your LineIn,
This problem has been with different versions of macOS over 2 years. and several reinstalls.

el capitan 10.11.1. sound preferences only showed headphones, (which i was in), line out and digital out. i switched from headphones to line out and then back to headphones and the problem (as of right now) is gone. thanks.

Well if you've followed all of the advice in the article, I can't really think what else to do. Did you try resetting SMC and PRAM? Maybe update to macOS Sierra and see if that fixes it? You could even try a full reinstall of the OS?

Beyond this, if your laptop is from early 2015 then it may still be under warranty depending on where you bought it. Australia and EU have two years standard warranty, but if you got AppleCare then it's covered for 3 years anyway. It might be worth taking it to Apple and getting them to have a look at it...

1. I want to use my Rode VideoMic which has TRS 3.5mm to record voice in either my Macbook Pro (2015) or on my iPhone 6 Plus

2. I bought a TRS to TRRS adaptor, where-in I can connect the TRRS input (male) of the adapter to my Mac/iPhone and the connect the Mic end (female) of the adaptor to the Rode Mic TRS

3. Ideally this should work, however in the 'Input Tab of Sound Menu' in my Mac, Built-in Internal Microphone is only used for Input. There is no other device found
In the 'Output Tab of Sound Menu', the device shown is Headphones

4. If I connect a Headphone with separate Input & Output plugs, I can hear music through the output but the mic on the Headphone is not detected by Mac/iPhone

5. However when I connect Apples Headphones, both the Input & Output is from the Headphone

Question: What should I do, in order to use my TRS Rode for audio recording onto the Mac?

I have an iMac, running Yosemite 10.10.5. I was given a gift of a digital turntable which came with Audacity software version 2.1.0. I installed the software, started to follow the instructions for configuring it for Mac (documentation was way out of date, the screen shots were for an earlier operating system) and, before I knew it, all my sound was gone. I've tried trying to find fixes online. None of them have worked. Settings in Sound preferences are seemingly set up correctly. I've now deleted the software from the computer and restarted the computer with no change. I've tried your suggestions up top of this article but Im a bit of a novice so am a little afraid of things like Terminal Windows. I just feel out of my depth here.

Don't be afraid of Terminal, the commands above won't cause any harm to your computer. You should try them and see if they make any difference. Did the digital turntable tell you to create an aggregate sound device by any chance? If so you can try deleting it (using the minus button) from Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup to see if that helps.

If nothing is working, ensure that your Speakers are selected as your primary Output device and that "Mute" isn't on obviously. Use the Terminal commands (or just launch Activity Monitor) to kill the coreaudiod process. It will restart automatically. Make sure your turntable isn't connected to your Mac any more also.

Hello Tim,
I am a complete novice at recording. I need to have Windows on my Mac Pro for my work. I am trying to record on power point files on office 10. I need to do a recording on each slide.

This is working but when I replay the recording there is so much background buzz. It is terrible.
I bought myself a set of the latest BOSE headphones with a speaker and tried this this morning but the buzz is still there.

Do you have any suggestions as to how I can make this sound more professional?
Many thanks in anticipation.

It sounds like the microphone is the issue in this case. Do you have multiple microphones connected to your Mac? Be sure to select the right one under Windows' sound preferences (I can't remember where as it's been so long since I've used it).

You could buy a nice microphone — we have a few suggestions here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/starting-podcast-recording-equipment-platforms/ but anywhere around $60-$100 should yield a huge improvement over any in-built one (plus you can use it for future projects, talking on Skype etc). Whenever you do connect the microphone you should make sure you select the right one as per the instructions above.

Some microphones to consider: Samson Meteor, Blue Snowball, Audio-Technica ATR2100. Just make sure you get a USB one, not XLR.

Optionally you could try recording the audio on a smartphone in a quiet environment, but do keep in mind the audio quality is likely to be poor too. Once complete you can just send the file to your computer and import it into PowerPoint.

I am having troubles while using Skype on my iMac running El Capitan. I use my internal speakers and have the noise reduction clicked. While I am talking there is a large amount of feedback. I can hear my own voice echoing through my brother's speakers in England and there is a ton of high pitched squealing. I've tried everything I can think of. Help!

While it might not be idea, headphones will solve this issue. It's possible that either you or your brother have your speakers too close to the microphone (a common problem on laptops), which is causing the feedback problem. As you say you can hear your own voice, it sounds like the problem is on your brother's side.

Either use headphones or the Skype mobile app to chat as you would normally on the phone to solve this one.

Ran into a strange problem today regarding input and output channels. I'm running an old OS on my MacBook Pro (OS X, 10.6.8), which I imagine could be part of the problem.

When running a line-in, in this case, an external mixer connected via RCA (with 1/4" adapters) to 3.5 cable into the microphone/input jack, I'll recieve distortion and no playback from equipment plugged into the mixer or sometimes no sound at all.

Perhaps more strange, when also having headphones plugged into the headphone jack, while the input is also plugged in, the sound is booted from my headphones and played through the internal speakers?

In the sound preferences, the "headphone" option disappears and automatically assigns itself back to the internal speakers. When I unplug the input jack and re-plug in the headphones, sound comes through the headphones as usual. I tested this through iTunes, since I am recieveing no audio via the input jack.

The strangest of all these things is that this seems to have happened out of the blue. I have been doing this process for quite a while, specifically, recording from the mixer into Logic via the input jack and monitoring out through the headphone jack.

Through process of elimination I can deduce that this must be an issue with my Mac/ports, the mixer, cables, and equipment all work fine when connected directly to a different source (external speakers) and I have also checked and double checked the preferences in my applications/os.

I tried most of these steps but to no avail. Just wondering if you had any other ideas before I give it a full wipe.

I've been struggling with distorted audio over google hangouts. We use it to play online games. I'm the only one using a mac and the only one having this issue. I was going to try your technique of killing the "coreaudioud" but when I called up the activity monitor I couldn't find it. Is this a file that comes and goes as needed?

Open Activity Monitor, select the CPU tab, and search for "core" and it should pop up with about 5 other processes. It doesn't come and go, it should always be running. Hence the system automatically restarting it when you kill it.

This is a very important article for every OS X user, thank you for this.
My problem was no sound after unplugging headphones, sleeping iMac, then returning hours later. Although the sound bar was adjustable and not muted in preferences, no sound was to be heard, headphones in, or headphones out.

Glad this article could help you out! I'm really glad El Capitan suffers from these audio problems a lot less than Mavericks did, but it's definitely handy to know how to restart Core Audio when things start sounding weird.

I picked up the Microsoft Designer Bluetooth (both keyboard and mouse).

The mouse connected easily but I could never get the keyboard to connect, no matter what I tried. When doing a Google search I even tried some specific examples in the Apple support forum for this particular device. Once I tried this it worked like a charm.

There's not much I can really suggest with such a vague description. Assuming you've tried everything here, you might want to backup with Time Machine and reinstall OS X. If it's a software issue, that should fix it. It should also make things run a little faster too.

Does anyone know how to delay audio output? I have managed to get all audio air playing through my sonos (yes it took a lot of work) but there is always a 4 second delay. I know you can delay certain apps like VLC player but can you just delay all output so you don't have to do it for each app? I'm starting to think you can't but it seems like such a simple feature.
Thanks in advance for any help.

My issue is with the Sound Preferences. I use an external device, i.e. tv as my monitor and select the HDMI option. This works. My question is 'why do I have to do this every time I turn the computer on?' When I choose other preferences they stay 'chosen'.

I'm having a similar problem with my iPhone contacts. I select iPhone contacts only (I don't want to scroll down my entire list of contacts looking for a number to call), but then after my next charge it goes back to all contacts. Its not a big deal, just annoying.

Any ideas out there on how to make selections permanent until I want to change them?

I generally find that my Mac remembers the settings, based on the device I have connected. E.g. if I connect my LG TV, I never have to specify HDMI audio out because it seems to remember that the LG TV is the preferred destination. Granted, I don't connect any other HDMI devices to my MacBook so I can't say whether this is entirely down to the device.

Thanks for the post! Sound output had suddenly stopped working for me — both for the speakers and the headphones, although System Preferences (and Option + clicking the menubar sound icon) listed all my output devices correctly. Killing coreaudiod through the Terminal fixed my issue.